← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 17550 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2005-03-28
2005-03-28 06:08 | User Profile
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? -- Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -- The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
September-October 1917
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
url: [url]http://www.lib.byu.edu/~english/WWI/index.html[/url]
2005-03-28 16:44 | User Profile
Reading Owen depresses and enlivens me at the same time. I had not thought that possible. He died one week before the Armistice. Killed in action 4 November 1918 on the banks of the Sambre-Oise canal.
2005-03-29 03:50 | User Profile
edward gibbon,
I only knew one won survivor of the trenches of the Great War personally He has a member of my family. He was a ranch hand in the Southwest in 1918 when he went into the infantry. He went over the top and was shot multiple timesand poisoned mustard gas, he would never recover from the lung damage. He had a very bad time in a p.o.w. camp. But He lived to be very old. He was a very cheerful old fellow, about six feet and one hundred and twenty pounds. He traveled around a lot did some prospecting and kept himself busy, I always amazed that he was able to keep going like that.
2005-03-29 05:29 | User Profile
edward gibbon,
I always did like this poem. When I was a freshman in High School my English teacher made every one bring in a poem and read it. This is the one I read.